Category: hope

I have been listening to this song on repeat for several weeks.I blare it in my care, I listen to in my earbuds as I work out.I play it in my classroom as I set up for my upcoming school year.

I listen to the chorus, to the verses and let them soak down to the trenches of my soul.

And let me tell you, I need these lyrics, like a balm to my wounded bleeding soul. I need to hear these words over and over again.I need them everyday.

I stand before You nowThe greatness of Your renownI’ve heard of the majesty and wonder of YouKing of Heaven, in humility, I bowAs Your love, in wave after waveCrashes over me, crashes over meFor You are for us, You are not against usChampion of Heaven, You made a way for all to enter inI’ve heard You calling my nameI’ve heard the song of love that You singSo I will let you draw me out beyond the shore Into Your graceYou make me braveYou make me braveYou call me out beyond the shore into the wavesYou make me braveYou make me braveNo fear can hinder now the Love that made a wayYou make me braveYou make me braveYou call me out beyond the shore into the wavesYou make me braveYou make me braveNo fear can hinder now the promises You’ve made

I need the reminder that He is the source of my strength and courage.Everyday. Everyday I need it.

A year ago, I drug myself back to school, figuratively kicking and screaming the whole way.I didn’t want to do it all over again.I didn’t want to climb the mountain of changes and challenges that stood before me.My life seemed so disappointing and not at all that I wanted it to be.I was angry, sad, and depressed.

Now, coming into this school year, I feel so much more hopeful.Not because of anything I have done, I didn’t just decide one day that life wasn’t disappointing.I didn’t just wake up one day not depressed or anxious anymore.However, I did stop believing the lie that I had to figure it out and do it on my own.

I stopped letting fear dictate my decisions, my emotions, and my reactions to what life threw at me.

I went back to the beginning, to the truth from the One who Loves me.

I let his truth start soaking into my soul again. When I began doing that, it was as if the whole world began to open up again.Anything was possible. All was not lost.God began revealing all that he was doing in my life and those around me.

It made me braver in my prayers and voicing my hopes and desires.It made me dream a little bigger and bravely give over those dreams to the Lord.It freed me from placing my hopes in my circumstances and in him who controls them.

When you let the love of the one who KNOWS you best, who CREATED you, who has your life in his hands, soak to the depth of your soul, it makes you brave, it makes you able to bare the hard things.

Friends, it doesn’t make those hard things less hard or less painful, but it gives you strength and power.Hegives you strength and power, that you won’t have on your own. He gives you a hope that doesn’t rest on the outcome of those hard things. He gives you a hope secure.

He is the source of hope, strength, power, and courage when we have none left. He is the one we can look to at all times to work on our behalf.

That’s why I am listening to this song, over and over. So that, THAT truth, that HE makes me brave, will be an anthem to my weary soul, when things inevitably get tough, when I will surely be anxious and fearful.

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Would this be the year that everything changes? Would I be put into the class with the cute boy I liked?Would everything be different this year?Would I suddenly become popular?

Before the first day of school, I eagerly anticipated the possibilities.

I had a very vivid imagination and I would spend the night before dreaming about all the things that could possibly happen.I would suddenly have the courage to stand up to bullies, I would have the guts to talk to my crush.Perhaps this year I would find that best friend. (You know the one that acts like your house is their house, the one that you can say so much to with a look.)

However, things never seemed to pan out the way we imagine they would.

Life isn’t the romantic comedy that we thought we were starring in or a sitcom with a laugh track.

As we get older we face the harsh reality everyday. We experiencedisappointments, failed hopes, and desires unmet. We encounter hard things, impossible things, and failures.

If you are anything like me over time after years of disappointments, you stop dreaming, and stop hoping.You jump on the cynical and bitter train.You start to fear the first days, you start to fear what will happen next. You are waiting for the other hammer to drop.

None of your hopes and dreams have come true and you begin to fear that they never will.

As I write this, I am struck by the fact that this perspective is contrary to the what God says about our hopes and dreams. He knows us better than we know ourselves and none of this, none of our heartaches are lost on him.

So if you are sitting on the disappointed bandwagon like me, let me give you a new anthem for your soul.

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

Even in our suffering and disappointment God has a purpose in it.

“The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lordupholds his hand.” Psalm 37:23-24

Though failures happen, he isn’t done with us yet. He has not given up on us, and even our dashed hopes are known by him.

You, the beautiful soul reading this, were stitched together by our Father the creator. He made you with a plan in mind.

He isn’t like us with good intentions and no follow through. His plans will come to fruition in his own perfect timing.

As you work through those disappointments and long lived desires of your heart, remember that you have not been left on this earth to bear these things alone or lightly. Delight in him and allow him to shape new dreams.

What are your new dreams? What disappointments do you need to let go of?

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“You will never be able to eat whatever you want. You are a food addict.”

Harsh words that I needed to hear again and face up to. Even though it is hard to swallow and even harder to come to grips with. Food will always be a problem for me, everyday.

Those words were prompted by a year of excuses and denying my reality.

About a year and half ago, I returned from an epic trip to Australia with my family. Before I even went on the trip, I was carrying a few pounds after completing my 3rd Half marathon. (I wasn’t running the miles but still eating the same amount of food.) So returned from my trip, I tried my best to get rid of those pounds, which I did, but they came back.

Slowly, after a few disappointments and a busy grad school semester, I mentally gave up.

Last summer, between moving and a foot injury, some of those precious pounds that I worked and sweat off a couple of years ago began coming back. Then in the midst of depression and hopelessness I spiraled. At the start of the year, I realized that I had stopped hoping and dreaming about what could happen next. Let’s be honest, in my mind I had thought that getting skinny was my best hope for good things in my future.

I had thought getting skinny would fix anxiety, procrastination, relationships, and my own fears.

It didn’t. It didn’t fix any of that, in fact it made all those things much more complicated. I am still learning that.

I also am still learning, like in life, there is never a point of arrival where things are over and you can live happy and content in that arrival place.

(Maybe this is the record that will be on repeat until the day I die. Maybe this is the one anthem that will be sung to my heart again and again.)

In the midst of that conversation, the hard reality hit me, I will never be one of those people that can eat whatever they want and not gain weight. I will never be one of those people that doesn’t have to work out. I will have to work hard for every pound and every calorie.

In the same way a alcoholic or a drug addict or a hoarder has to face up to the truth of their situation in order to heal, I have to do the same. And I have to do so every day.

But let me get spiritual on you, this is the reality of our souls as well. We are sin addicts. At the core of who we are, we are sinners. We want to worship at the idol of ME. We feed that idol when we deny the reality of our sin nature. When we down play the severity, when we chalk it up to circumstances or blame other people.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Ephesians 2:1-3 ESV)

The part that makes this easier to bear, is the fact that God hasn’t left us in the street with a needle stuck in our arm. The second part of the the passage gives us hope.

BUT God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— (Ephesians 2:4-5 ESV)

When I think about this truth, and the reality of where I am at with my physical battle, I am hopeful. If God is able to save my soul from the trappings of a great addiction, how much greater will he be able to help me in the battle against these physical addictions.I don’t write this because I have finished the race, but because I am still running it. I might be getting lost, backtracking, and stumbling.I write this as a reminder to look to him who hasn’t left me to run this alone.I write this to encourage myself to keep going. I write this because all is not lost, but rather saved by his grace and mercy!